


Malo Lupo

by justbygrace



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9947771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: It's the first time he's ever wanted a suspect to escape.





	

He's been the head of the special intelligence force for years and it's the first time he's wanted a suspect to escape. He doesn't admit it to anyone, of course - career suicide and all that - and he doesn't consciously hinder the investigation, but he's rooting for her all the same. There is something about her that wakes him up and makes him want to run.

No one else thinks Bad Wolf is a woman - can't be, they say, no woman could be that smart, but they're all idiots. He's been studying her movements for years and there is a certain finesse (some would say a sensuousness, but he's not that far gone yet) to her actions that speak to a gentle side, someone too young and too good to have the notoriety that she does.

It's not like she has done anything particularly evil, she steals secrets from the rich, thwarts the government, deals in lies and coverups. If there is something that no one wants anyone to know, it's a guarantee it will be delivered to the nightly news and broadcast loud and clear. Everyone whose anyone has had their secrets exposed by her and he'd probably hate her a little bit more if he was on that list, but somehow his secrets have all been delivered to his inbox and signed with her little glowing wolf. He doesn't know what he's done to make her friend list, but he's secretly terrified of the day that she'll realize his secrets are far more dangerous than which politician is fucking which secretary. 

He's always been a bit obsessive - he's the first to admit that - and it's helped him to have the highest closed case in fifty years and a corner office and an entire team reporting to him, but it's Bad Wolf that he lives, breathes, eats, sleeps. They work other cases of course - hers is an ongoing investigation, fitted between the pedophiles and rapists and politicians (and most of them are outed by her and everyone ignores that fifty percent of their leads are coming in signed with a wolf) - but her case files are rarely far from him. He has an entire wall dedicated to her in his office and when he sleeps he hears a wolf howling at him around the edges of the nightmares, a byproduct of a war most of the country has learned to forget. 

They make very little progress. An anonymous tip leads them to deploy an entire SWAT team only to find a dusty cellar and a tiny gold wolf statue, a call on an untraceable line has them staking out an abandoned shop for a week, a letter from a reliable source sends them wandering around the wrong side of the city for hours until they finally find where someone spray painted "Bad Wolf" on the cracked asphalt of an old playground. Once they almost catch up with her - a flash of gold at a computer cafe, but the woman at the counter (young, with blonde hair and whiskey-colored eyes) tells them she didn't see anyone unusual. He suspects that all of the tips are coming in from Bad Wolf because she's bored or because she's playing with them or maybe just because she can and he can't help a growing respect for her.

As the months drag on his determination to find her grows, chasing down every little lead and tip, no matter how ridiculous. Sometimes when he's out - the rare times when he leaves work and doesn't crash on the couch, he swears he sees her, hears her, feels her. She's the whisper on the wind when he's catching a taxi home, the hairs on the back of his neck when he walks through the underground garage, the shadow down the alley in the dead of night, the nip on his heels as he runs through the quiet city streets. He sees her on every face, hears her in every voice, stops in the middle of the street to double-check a shop window. Rumor has it that he's losing his mind, but they're wrong - he's in the process of finding it.

It takes them a year to get a break. They've been running a trace on certain words and phrases for ages without expecting anything to come of it and then it does: a mention of a wolf and a date and a time. He doesn't alert anyone he doesn't have to (the mud on his face is bad enough already) and he shows up to an out of the way chippy with low expectations. No one's there but the girl behind the counter and she hands him a letter, letting him know with a smile that shows a hint of her tongue that she didn't get a good look at the person who handed it to her. 

The envelope is addressed with his real name and he can't stop his hands from shaking as he rips it open. The note's written in the code he developed back in his army days, but he feigns an inability to understand it, handing it off to get translated knowing it'll take them ages to figure it out, all his notes burned to the ground and the only translator is locked in a vault in Barcelona. He accepts the mutters about dead ends and rotten luck and waits till everyone goes home for the night before leaving the office.

He deliberately tries not to think about anything on the walk. He doesn't want to know why she wants to meet or if he trusts her or why he didn't bring back-up or why he left his credentials back in his office, instead he heads straight for the corner of the park where the statue of the goddess Fortuna guards a wishing well. There is no one there when he gets there and though he expected that, it still hurts more than he wants to admit. He lingers, staring at the water littered with coins and wondering what he'd wish for if he believed in that sort of thing. 

There is a disturbance in the air and he suddenly knows she's there. He doesn't want to look up - the golden thread binding them together has been his lifeline and he's afraid for it to break. Instead he focuses on the slide of fingers in his, the long, soft fingers that tell him that he was right all along - she's definitely a female and definitely young. 

Her voice whispers in his ear, the scent of strawberries and vanilla and adventure surrounding him, and then she tugs on his hand. He hesitates, unsure if this is it, if he is ready to throw his career away for her. It isn't until he finally turns his head and sees whiskey-colored eyes and blonde hair that he smiles and it isn't until she meets that smile with a tongue-touched one of her own that he is the one tugging them forward, urging her to run. 

Later, much later, she asks him why. He stares at her, at his angel, his Fortuna, his wolf, and he tells her that there wasn't any question really. He never stood a chance.


End file.
